ECONOMY

chapter 42
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INTERNATIONAL
POLITICAL
ECONOMY
A MATURING
INTERDISCIPLINE
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david a. lake
The world is “globalized.” Among developed countries, international trade now
accounts for nearly 38 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). For developing
economies, imports plus exports comprise nearly 49 per cent of all national output.
Over the last two decades, global flows of foreign direct investment have more than
doubled relative to GDP. As journalist Thomas Friedman (2000, 9) has famously
described it, globalization now allows “individuals, corporations, and nation-states
to reach around the world farther, faster, deeper and cheaper than ever before.”
The field of international political economy (IPE) pre-dates the current era of
globalization, but not by much; perhaps more accurately, it was created by scholars
trying to grasp the fundamentals of this nascent age. Nonetheless, this young
field is rapidly maturing. From a range of early perspectives, a dominant approach,
referred to as Open Economy Politics (OEP), now structures and guides research. 1
Although political scientists are more apt to identify themselves as “international
political economists,” OEP bridges the disciplines of political science and economics
∗ I am grateful for comments on an earlier draft of this chapter from J. Lawrence Broz, Jeffry Frieden,
Gordon Hanson, and Marc Muendler.
¹ The term comes from Bates 1997.